Comments on: Building Relationships With Professors to Gain a Recruiting Edge (Part 2 of 2) http://www.ere.net/2008/09/08/building-relationships-with-professors-to-gain-a-recruiting-edge-part-2-of-2/ Recruiting News, Recruiting Events, Recruiting Community, Social Recruiting Sat, 21 Nov 2009 23:35:23 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Mike Jackson http://www.ere.net/2008/09/08/building-relationships-with-professors-to-gain-a-recruiting-edge-part-2-of-2/comment-page-1/#comment-7308 Mike Jackson Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:47:45 +0000 http://www.ere.net/?p=3880#comment-7308 I agree with some points made in this article and disagree with others. In my opinion the statement following statement is one of the most important people in this article. "Instead, the best people to build the relationship with faculty are your program directors and your hiring managers." Having HR people contact faculty members (unless you are recruiting HR people) is not the way to go. Many faculty members will probably point you right to career services. It is important to "speak in the professors language". So have your HR people contact Career Services and have your hiring managers (possibly an alum) contact them faculty. The hiring managers can probably ask better questions about the cirriculum and how it relates to their business than a HR person could. Getting it from both sides is more effective then just using career services or just going to faculty. Fair or unfair it's important to understand that not just any company is going to be able to land multipe meetings and contacts with faculty members. While donations to the University help, non-financial investments are important as well. Join industry boards or corporate affiliate programs and offer to speak in classrooms. For highly in demand students many employers want access to these students. If you want to put yourself above the rest, you need to do something more. I also agree with jb that "spitting in career services face" is not a good idea. While it is true that not all students use career services many do. If you ignore them you may miss a large portion of students. It is important to still attend job fairs, post jobs, and conduct on campus interviews to build your brand. As it was pointed out the best career services office work well with the faculty and many are housed inside the departments themselves. I agree with some points made in this article and disagree with others. In my opinion the statement following statement is one of the most important people in this article. “Instead, the best people to build the relationship with faculty are your program directors and your hiring managers.” Having HR people contact faculty members (unless you are recruiting HR people) is not the way to go. Many faculty members will probably point you right to career services. It is important to “speak in the professors language”. So have your HR people contact Career Services and have your hiring managers (possibly an alum) contact them faculty. The hiring managers can probably ask better questions about the cirriculum and how it relates to their business than a HR person could. Getting it from both sides is more effective then just using career services or just going to faculty.

Fair or unfair it’s important to understand that not just any company is going to be able to land multipe meetings and contacts with faculty members. While donations to the University help, non-financial investments are important as well. Join industry boards or corporate affiliate programs and offer to speak in classrooms. For highly in demand students many employers want access to these students. If you want to put yourself above the rest, you need to do something more.

I also agree with jb that “spitting in career services face” is not a good idea. While it is true that not all students use career services many do. If you ignore them you may miss a large portion of students. It is important to still attend job fairs, post jobs, and conduct on campus interviews to build your brand. As it was pointed out the best career services office work well with the faculty and many are housed inside the departments themselves.

]]> By: Frank Risalvato http://www.ere.net/2008/09/08/building-relationships-with-professors-to-gain-a-recruiting-edge-part-2-of-2/comment-page-1/#comment-7270 Frank Risalvato Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:02:54 +0000 http://www.ere.net/?p=3880#comment-7270 This is an "OLDIE BUT GOODIE". I remember using this approach of reaching out to college deans, and department heads way, way way back twenty years ago when I first started. Back then much of my assignments were mid level professional down to some trainee. While many companies don't use a recruiting firm for trainee or college grads, we did have two or three regular clients (which I take credit in cultivating) that entrusted me for such each and every year. The creation of JobTrak by Monster automated this as many colleges had their students automatically registered with JobTrak (at the time this was outsourcing the career services funtion to some extent). But those relationships with deans were critical to get that fresh candidate before anyone else. These days most of my assignments are six figure and up ($125 to $300k salary base) and I no longer use this technique. This is an “OLDIE BUT GOODIE”. I remember using this approach of reaching out to college deans, and department heads way, way way back twenty years ago when I first started. Back then much of my assignments were mid level professional down to some trainee. While many companies don’t use a recruiting firm for trainee or college grads, we did have two or three regular clients (which I take credit in cultivating) that entrusted me for such each and every year.

The creation of JobTrak by Monster automated this as many colleges had their students automatically registered with JobTrak (at the time this was outsourcing the career services funtion to some extent).

But those relationships with deans were critical to get that fresh candidate before anyone else.

These days most of my assignments are six figure and up ($125 to $300k salary base) and I no longer use this technique.

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